VoIP

Xten Networks wowed me recently by striking some impressive partnerships. The first was with GN Netcom, allowing you to purchase a headset, soft client VoIP bundle with a neat hardware gizmo that is quite useful.

At the opposite end of the spectrum they work with Belkin enabling them to roll out a tremendous VoIP offering from retail to wholesale with integrated DSL modem devices, WiFi access points, etc.

They have positioned themselves as an ideal "go to" partner to get you into the VoIP space in a hurry. This must account for Xten's amazing growth. I recently gave a keynote speech in Dallas at an Interactive Intelligence/Vonexus seminar and when I mentioned soft clients with PBX functionality to the audience, someone in the front row held up an IPAQ with a telephone pad on the screen.

It is funny when I get asked by people why the VoIP market is growing so fast. I often have to stop and think about just how broad the VoIP space is. You literally have products for the military, education, salesforce automation/mobility, softswitches, session border controllers, etc. The list is literally endless.

I recently learned that Intoto is working on some reference designs with AT&T that are pretty intriguing. In case you aren't familiar with Intoto, they are an ODM or original design manufacturer supplying OEMs and service providers with designs. From a time to market standpoint Intoto allows you to get your products out more quickly than if you wanted to deal with software stacks and other building blocks yourself.

The company is in the VoIP and wireless spaces and they are specialists in security.

Intoto is intriguing to me because they are working with AT&T on a business class VoIP device. The device includes provisioning technology based on a protocol named TLS or transport layer security.

In what has to be an April Fool's joke only a week early ClearWire, a wireless broadband service provider is telling its customers it has the right to block a bunch of their different bandwidth hungry apps. Sure enough, VoIP is among the top of the list.

More interesting is the fact that the company plans on offering it own VoIP service in the near future as well. In my opinion consumers should run screaming from any service provider that wants to help us determine what applications are appropriate to run on a service we are paying for. See the story here.

In my recent blog, AdvancedTCA Growing Quickly I talked about how Instat mentioned the OSC market and more specifically the ATCA market is advancing nicely. This post was based on some research by Instat. I had a chance to ask Eric M. Mantion, Senior Analyst at Instat about the OSC and ATCA market in particular. Here are his comments:

The following is an except from an Instat newsletter I received today. I thought it worth of sharing.

CTIA's Number One Jeopardy Category: Ends in "O"

"Alex, what is an MVNO?"
Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) seem to have caught the attention of CTIA goers (only five years late the way I figure it). The most astonishing sight was the impeccably dressed Sean "P. Diddy" Combs as he addressed the Monday morning keynote audience.

Here is a great overview of what is happening in the world of VoIP and 911: Intrado and TCI to Address 911. I have written about how 911 over VoIP will eventually be much better that 911 over the PSTN. This article echoes my sentiments.

The problem is that Texas and perhaps other states are pushing for VoIP to be as good as the PSTN’s 911 service, today! This isn’t reality.

Some people will tell you that the incumbents haven’t made it easy for VoIP providers to have access to PSAPs and thus allowing their VoIP service to be on par with the PSTN.

The article is a good read because it points out questions worth asking such as:

What are the business goals of considering an IP telephony system – improved services, decreased costs, integrated network, for example?

What services will employees need today and in the future?

What type of training will be necessary to ensure employees use the system as effectively as possible?

Can the existing data network handle the increased bandwidth that are required from an IP telephony system?

Furthermore it discusses some of the approaches you can take.

Hybrid – An IP card is attached to an existing PBX and the user receives a IP phone. This approach allows the user to get phone calls over an IP phone, but not the other services available through IP telephony.

Aside from a grammar issue, I found this release titled The Perception of Qwest, discussing Qwest’s business model to be a good overview of why the carrier is forced to put together this huge deal with MCI.

Here is a key paragraph:

Qwest realizes they have to do something if they want to continue to grow. Their legacy markets are under attack on many fronts and they strategically are not positioned in the fast growing wireless sector. “Doing nothing” relegates them to managing a shrinking business and that is not why a man of Notebart’s stature took the CEO role.

I have said it before and I will say it again if we don’t get our act together soon as an industry we will have some serious headaches to contend with. The positive press friendly to VoIP that we witnessed for a year will vanish the moment someone is injured or worse because there is a problem with VoIP and E911 connectivity.

The current state of 911 over today’s VoIP providers is not good. The incumbents aren’t as much of an issue as the newer carriers who transfer 911 calls to lower priority administrative lines in PSAPs. E911 over VoIP can be much better than PSTN 911. We need to come together as an industry and discuss the challenges and standards issues and make sure that e911 over VoIP becomes a reason to adopt and not a reason to pass on VoIP.

I consider this a stumbling block that needs addressing on our way to achieving VoIP 2.0.